GERMANY FROM ABOVE4th Season

Episode 12: Waters

The third episode of „Germany From Above 4“ leads us to water. Germany´s seas and rivers hide surprises that can be detected best from above.

Nevertheless the golden thread of this episode is a steam train convention, which is held in Dresden in Saxony, East Germany. We accompany one beauty of a historic steam train „01“ all the way from the Lake Constance and the Rhine River in the South West, passing the German rivers Danube and Main, and half a dozen more rivers, before we are finally reaching the big Elbe river in Dresden. A romatic train journey through the biggest part of Germany.

Ferries and cargo ships cross the Baltic Sea today. Yet, a very active trading network existed there already 2000 years ago. The Baltic Sea is he world´s largest ships´underwater cemetery. With an animation we reveal what still lies on the sea bed.

Tourists concentrate on the coasts of the Baltic Sea. Yet its hinterland offers some of the most beautiful and wildest landscapes in Germany, especially along the Peenestrom channel. An endless number of birds nest in endless marshland. Boars and deer can be detected in the meadows – especially when you look at them from above. From this perspective the Kieler Woche, the biggest sailing event in the world in the North German Kiel is really a breath taking event.

Water has always created landscapes and water still shapes them. Over 150 million years ago, the „Franconian Suisse“ was building the bottom of the sea. When the waters ran off, the rocks remained, exposed to weathers in the damp air. Today these impressive rocks are very popular not only among climbers. In the rivers and creeks trouts and graylings breed naturally. The Rhine, Germany´s longest river, on the contrary, has been constrained over the centuries into a new, straight river bed.

There are only just a few areas where the Rhine´s bights can still be seen, for instance at the Rhine water meadows of the so called „Baden Jungle“ From the air it looks like paradise on earth – yet it is also the breeding ground of an annoying plague: mosquitos. A special developed bacteria is spread from mini helicopters to fight them, without poisening the environment.

Among the greatest beauties of Germany are the two steep and narrow gorges of the alpine rivers Breitach and Partnach in Bavaria. For „Germany From Above 4“ we film with a drone squeezing along the very tight escarpments and we flew with an helicopter between the vertical walls of the two gauges with their roaring and ice-cold rivers.

Nevertheless the golden thread of this episode is a steam train convention, which is held in Dresden in Saxony, East Germany. We accompany one beauty of a historic steam train „01“ all the way from the Lake Constance and the Rhine River in the South West, passing the German rivers Danube and Main, and half a dozen more rivers, before we are finally reaching the big Elbe river in Dresden. A romatic train journey through the biggest part of Germany.

Ferries and cargo ships cross the Baltic Sea today. Yet, a very active trading network existed there already 2000 years ago. The Baltic Sea is he world´s largest ships´underwater cemetery. With an animation we reveal what still lies on the sea bed.

Tourists concentrate on the coasts of the Baltic Sea. Yet its hinterland offers some of the most beautiful and wildest landscapes in Germany, especially along the Peenestrom channel. An endless number of birds nest in endless marshland. Boars and deer can be detected in the meadows – especially when you look at them from above. From this perspective the Kieler Woche, the biggest sailing event in the world in the North German Kiel is really a breath taking event.

Water has always created landscapes and water still shapes them. Over 150 million years ago, the „Franconian Suisse“ was building the bottom of the sea. When the waters ran off, the rocks remained, exposed to weathers in the damp air. Today these impressive rocks are very popular not only among climbers. In the rivers and creeks trouts and graylings breed naturally. The Rhine, Germany´s longest river, on the contrary, has been constrained over the centuries into a new, straight river bed.

There are only just a few areas where the Rhine´s bights can still be seen, for instance at the Rhine water meadows of the so called „Baden Jungle“ From the air it looks like paradise on earth – yet it is also the breeding ground of an annoying plague: mosquitos. A special developed bacteria is spread from mini helicopters to fight them, without poisening the environment.

Among the greatest beauties of Germany are the two steep and narrow gorges of the alpine rivers Breitach and Partnach in Bavaria. For „Germany From Above 4“ we film with a drone squeezing along the very tight escarpments and we flew with an helicopter between the vertical walls of the two gauges with their roaring and ice-cold rivers.

Facts

First aired on 31st May 2015 , 19:30 p.m., on ZDF
45 minutes

Feedback

Small advance clip from the Cities episode of the mini series Germany from above 4. The clip soon became viral on ZDF networks’ Facebook-page. Within 48 hours it hade one million viewers. Later ARD Sportschau and the site of the German Football Leaguze DFL also posted the link, again with a million viewers.